X-MEN WHO WOULD WE CAST?

After buying Marvel and Lucasfilm, Disney is continuing with their plan for world domination and their next target was Fox, the deal is done and all going well by summer 2019 we will have fox and all their properties under the hand of the house of the mouse.

This is not all good news, Fox owns some really cool properties that don’t really work if we put the Disney spin on them, “Alien”, “Predator” and even “Deadpool” are just a few.
(By the way, read our “Deadpool 2” review here)

On the other hand, this could be great news for comic book fans, many Marvel characters can return home and more, join the MCU.

The biggest names are with no doubt the Fantastic Four and the X-men there are many movies done before of this 2 properties and some of them are not bad, some are even excellent like X-Men 2.
(Read our “Top 20 comic book superhero movies” review here)

But for this titles to fit in the MCU they will need a reboot.
We love imagining movies and how we would do them so we decided to think who we would cast for both properties, you can see it in our Instagram @unyolo_movies_blog.

But for the X-Men we wanted to do more, we outline the story and how we see that universe evolving.

Many of our ideas are based on the comic books and not on the movies that came before, the only universe that we going to assume that would still exist after the acquisition would be the Deadpool one, “Deadpool” is on the right track and making loads of money so there is no logic to reboot that, everything else is fair game.

So let’s start;

X-MEN

When the “X-men” was created it was an allegory about people that were different, Gay, Black, communists everyone that was put to the side by society, and the original X-men were really young to show how teenagers would deal with this problems and how in comparison to the older characters they saw the world.

We almost had that in the original “X-men”, the way Magneto and Professor X friendship is torn apart by their different ideals, how they pick a generation to pass on their values is brilliant, then its ruined by getting actors that are too old for the most parts and never really show their struggles.
Still, the opening sequence of Magneto with the Nazi camp is still one of the best out there.

So for us, we see the MCU version of the X-Men a bit like “Spider-man homecoming”, really young heroes that are struggling to fit in for several reasons.
To help them we have older characters that are struggling also with adapting to a new world.

One of the things also the MCU showed everyone that they know how to do is to slow cook with tension, it took 10 years of Thanos in the shadows until we got the big final so that is something we believe can work well in the x-men because they have some of the best villains in the comics, but only if done the right way, or we get another Apocalypse movie.
(Read our “Avengers: Infinity War” review here)

But let’s get into it.

It all starts with our two main characters Charles Xavier aka Professor X played by Mark Strong and Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto played by Stephen Lang.
Mark Strong is an amazing actor that in movies like “Kingsman” showed he can cast an impressive and powerful presence, he feels like a leader and would fit this part perfectly, to balance we need an actor that his presence alone demands respect and causes fear, if you watched “Don’t Breathe” and even “Avatar” you know Stephen Lang is perfect for this.

Also, both of them are similar in age and will be the older characters that will balance with the young actors and bring them all together.

Just like in the comics this two characters want to save the mutant race, Charles believes that humanity needs to accept them and they can all live in harmony, to do this he creates a school for the gifted and tries and teach a group of students how to control their powers and to use them to protect the world of mutants that decided to harm it.

On the other side, we have Magneto that because of all he suffered in the second world war in the hands of the Nazis, being a jew that saw his race being exterminated he believes that mutants need to strike first, these two sides are what divided them and their friendship.

Charles by using Cerebro, a machine created by him and Magneto, allows for his powers to be exponentially enlarged.
Using it allows him to look for mutants all over the world to create his first class.

Their love story will be the base for The Dark Phoenix saga that is a huge story just like “Infinity War”, also for the story of Cable because in the comic books Cable his their son that returns from the future.

Then we have Hank Mccoy aka the beast, Hank is the muscle but also the brains of the team, a genius that will be responsible for a lot of the tech that the x-men will use, for this part we wanted someone that could be Physically imponent but had a geek and innocent look to him, Nick Robinson showed all that in this year “Love Simon”.

Iceman, in the new Marvel ultimate universe, came out of the closet and he had to fight to be accepted not only for being a mutant but also for being gay.
Iceman is like the Spider-man of the group, he is always the wisecracking guy telling jokes, and for us, Dave Franco is the perfect guy to bring him to life.

Angel is another character that will have a really interesting arch, he was always seen as a bit of a joke, but in the future, he would become one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and one of the darkest characters.
So we wanted an actor with an angel face but with a devil wanted to come out, Harry Styles from the boy band One Direction seems like a weird choice but he proved he could act on “Dunkirk” and that he could be broken and still look innocent.

In Africa Charles will find a small village that worships a goddess that can control the weather, Ororo aka Storm played by the beautiful Yara Shahidi she is not a huge Hollywood name but if you see “Black-ish” you will understand our pick, for us Ororo will be a pretty interesting character a bit like Thor in the MCU she will be used to be seen as a God and the outside world will be strange to her.
Also if you read the comics with time we can get her getting closer to Black Panther and just like in the comics become the queen of Wakanda.
(Read our “Black Panther” review here)

Colossus will be a major important character because we can use him to connect this universe to the one of Deadpool, Colossus in Deadpool is pretty much perfect so we would keep him but just make the CGI character look younger because this story would start before the events of Deadpool.
We could even have him talk with the others about the clown in the red suit and have small references to Deadpool.

And to close the team we would have Nightcrawler, a mutant that was left in an orphanage when he was a baby, a shy character that spends pretty much all his life teleporting and running away all over the world, to play this character we picked Timothée Chalamet that proved in “Call Me by Your Name” that he can hit this role in every possible way.
Charles would find him living in a monastery and would convince him to join his first class not knowing the huge problems that would bring the team.

The first movie would have Sabertooth as the main villain, he would be after the team because of Nightcrawler.
Many people don’t know but Nightcrawler is the son of Mystique , in the comics Sabertooth and Mystique also had a son together, so for our movie Nightcrawler would be that son, she always hid this from Victor Creed aka Sabertooth, Creed would be played by Joel Edgerton, Joel is an awesome actor and if you saw him in “Warrior” you know he can bring the beast out.

Mystique is a character that even in the comics always have been a dubious character, she can be evil and she usually is, but also has a good side to her, Margot Robbie has done this before in “Suicide Squad” and in this role, she could play with the multiple personality aspects more. And come on she is beautiful and that is a very strong element in this character persona.
Also, she could be Timothée Chalamet mother because she can change the way she looks and make herself look younger so that eliminates the timeline issues.

So sabertooth would attack the X-men and from the shadows, Mystique would try and stop him.
Charles always seeing the good side of everyone would try and bring Mystique to his side and turn her into a hero, but would find out how dangerous she can be, this will allow a really interesting dynamic.

Magneto on the other side would want to get Sabertooth to join his revolution and starts creating his team that would already include Charles brother Cain Marko aka Juggernaut.

Cain is Charles half-brother and always bullied him so again this interesting dynamic will be in play there.
Not many people can play Juggernaut, when in full comic book mode only CGI will do the trick but Joe Manganiello can at least look like the part of Marko, looking at movies like “Magic Mike” and “Rampage” we can see his size and how badass he can be.
Having Sabertooth as the main bad guy will also allow us to bring another character in the storyline that is essential in the x-men universe, Wolverine.

Wolverine is going to be one of the hardest characters to bring to the screen, and the main reason is Hugh Jackman, he took that role and made it is own and no one can now see anyone taking this part.
We found it hard but we believe we have the perfect person, Scott Eastwood the son of Clint Eastwood, he didn’t have many big parts that can prove he can do it, but Hugh Jackman came to the part as an unknown so we will give him a chance, at least he looks the part.

Apart from this characters, we will have two other factions that will be influencing both sides from the shadows, one would be Mister Sinister.

Mr. Sinister is a mutant that wants to study other mutants and will be trying to join Magneto side but always with the idea of double-crossing him.
Mr. Sinister character on screen will be mainly makeup and CGI so we wanted someone with a weird aura and a cool creepy and manipulative voice, Vincent Cassel came to mind after watching “Black Swan“.

And the last piece in the puzzle that will be our Thanos and will be controlling everything from the shadows for several movies, testing our heroes, learning and waiting will not be one villain, but a club, the Hellfire club.

The Hellfire Club is a group of mutants that control much of the world from the shadows, they are successful business people, sorceress, telepath, and mentalists that make the world tick at their will.

The Black King, Sebastian Shaw can transform any kind of energy in raw strength, we saw him before in first-class played by Kevin Bacon but still we believe he can be done better, by picking an actor that can look like the evil genius that is plotting everything a step in front of everyone, for this we picked James Frain.
If you follow the tv show “Gotham” his part of Theo Galavan / Azrael was all this and more.

By his side is Emma Frost the white queen, Emma Frost is a blonde bombshell that controls people with her telepathic powers and men with her beauty, so what another actress could we chose than Charlize Theron.
In other movies, we had younger actresses playing Emma Frost but we believe the Hellfire Club should be made of older villains that look they been in control for a very long time, and if you saw “Atomic Blonde” you know Charlize Theron age doesn’t show.

The Black Queen, Selene is a witch, a dark character that needed to give us the vibe of a dark entity but still being beautiful, Sofia Boutella had a flop with the remake of “The Mummy” but still, she looked exactly like what we needed for this character.

And finally, we have one of the weirdest members of the hellfire club, the Mastermind, Jason Wyngarde a mentalist that can make people see what he wants.
Even his identity is an illusion he can look like anyone he wants but in reality, he is an outcast, we wanted someone that could bring the weirdness to life, Who better than Steve Buscemi?
Steve Buscemi is an amazing actor and he can play nuts and normal and nuts again by the snap of your fingers, movies like “Armageddon” showed us him doing that and it felt natural for him.

For us there is only one name, someone that until now didn’t do one bad movie, that was not afraid to pick one of the most sacred movies ever made and not only did an amazing sequel but made it his own, we are obviously talking about “Blade Runner 2049” and Denis Villeneuve.

He can do raw action like he showed us in “Sicario” and can develop strong dark characters that have real arcs like he did in “Prisoners“.
He turned stories that could be really boring like “Arrival” into one of the best movies of the year and finally showed us in “Blade Runner 2049” that he can work with big budgets and special effects and never lose the hearth of the movie.

We can only dream what he could do with such a deep universe like the X-men.

So this is the base for our universe where several movies could be based on and set up other stories to be told like Deadpool, Wolverine, Xforce and many others.

There were some things that influence our ideas because of the respect we have for the MCU and other movies in this universe.“Logan” is one of the best superhero movies ever made and deserves his place so that stopped us using Donald Pierce in the hellfire club because for the timeline to work he would need to be a baby.
Spiderman Homecoming stole two of our picks for the actors, Zendaya was our first choice for Storm and Donald Glover was our Iceman, but they already part of the MCU, so we picked others.
Same for Walton Goggins that just joined the MCU in the new “Ant-man and the Wasp” and was our first pick for Sebastian Shaw.

Tell us what you think, do you like our cast, our story? What would you change, give us your ideas and maybe all together we can influence the next X-men movie.

Don’t forget to check our Instagram @unyolo_movies_blog and check out our casting for a new Fantastic 4 movie.